After six seasons on the outer, Essendon will finally graduate to the AFLW in the summer of 2022-23.
We won’t see an 18-team AFLW for another 16 months, but the excitement at Essendon is already palpable.
It was announced last week that Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Sydney and the Bombers would enter in the 2022-23 season, just under six years after the inaugural eight-team competition.
For Georgia Nanscawen, Essendon’s VFLW captain, it’s been a long time coming.
“There’s a lot of work that’s been put in behind the scenes and it’s been building for a few years,” the Bombers 2019 VFLW best-and-fairest winner told Footyology.
“For it to finally be announced and official, it’s special for the whole club.”
A red-and-black application was first submitted for the 2019 AFLW season, the same year in which Nanscawen played two games for North Melbourne after a switch of sports.
During her one-year Arden Street stint, the 205-time, multi-record-breaking Hockeyroo was thrown in at the deep end. Since heading to The Hangar following the delisting from North Melbourne though, Nanscawen has blossomed into a VFLW superstar.
She guided a youthful Dons outfit to its first finals campaign this year and eagle-eyed AFLW recruiters were quick to pounce on the bounty of Bomber talent. Six of Nanscawen’s teammates were picked up in July’s AFLW draft, including No.2 selection Georgie Prespakis – an inside midfielder whose sister Madison won 2020’s AFLW best-and-fairest award – as well as her future Geelong teammate, and seventh pick, Zali Friswell.
Nanscawen, an in-and-under tough nut herself, describes list building as “one of the toughest things” to do in the women’s game. Essendon’s strategy has long been to develop would-be wunderkinds in association with the Calder Cannons and Bendigo Pioneers, but not for themselves.
As these Bomber prospects ripened, they were promptly plucked by clubs with an AFLW side. Danielle Ponter was snapped up by Adelaide in 2018, Lauren Ahrens by Gold Coast and Hayley Bullas by West Coast in 2019, then Ruby Svarc by Brisbane in 2020.
“Essendon has tried to create players to go off, unfortunately, to play for other teams,” Nanscawen said.
“The exciting thing now is that all the girls who are coming through the talent pathway can now go play for Essendon. It’s a bit hard to tell what the list is looking like, but there are certainly a few who have been here from the start; it’d be nice to see a number of those girls getting a go in the AFLW.”
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However, Nanscawen knows the reality of converting a VFLW list into one which can hold its own in the cut-and-thrust of AFLW.
“We’re not naïve to think the team’s going to change a lot,” she said.
The most recent expansion team with a VFLW affiliate, St Kilda, brought in just six players from the Southern Saints onto their maiden list of 30.
Nanscawen’s humility, and perhaps her fear of “the mozz”, means she won’t be drawn into any speculation regarding her own future. What she does know, though, is that she won’t be jetting off from Tullamarine any time soon.
“I’ve been pretty upfront with the fact that if I’m going to play AFLW again, I’d love for it to be for Essendon. I can’t really see myself going elsewhere,” she said.
The Bombers boast arguably the best facilities in football, an unquestionable history of success and, crucially, a huge fanbase with staunch loyalty and fierce pride.
In 2019, the last non-COVID-affected season, Essendon’s average attendance was bettered by only two teams, both of which finished in the top four. At that point, Richmond and Collingwood had also played in three consecutive grand finals between them. Essendon hadn’t, and still hasn’t, won a final since 2004.
A substantial chunk of its 81,000 members have been waiting to support a top-tier women’s team since well before the AFLW even began. For a long time though, Essendon could not afford the money or time required for a women’s program. An eight-year period between 2011 and 2019 saw the club drowning in debt and wallowing in the pain of the drugs saga – two prohibitive factors which were in no way unrelated to each other.
Since losing their first seven games, the Bombers have soared up the VFLW ladder season upon season. The culmination of a preliminary final berth this year was, in part, thanks to the recent completion of The Hangar’s purpose-built women’s facilities.
Speaking to the club’s website, Essendon president Paul Brasher said it has “never been better positioned to enter the AFLW competition.”
“We have particularly drawn inspiration from the players in our VFLW team,” Brasher added.
With players like Nanscawen on his mind, and soon the minds of thousands of fans, there’s a lot to be excited about at Bomberland.
